The 162 Days of Baseball

Doing my own little play on The 12 Days of Christmas will provide this post with some tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. The week following the winter meetings is usually a sort of calm following the storm. Besides for a few pre-Christmas signings, not a whole lot really happens in this stretch. That also gives way to many statisticians making predictions of their own for the upcoming season.

Unfortunately, they have not been very merciful to many players out there. This does include your people's champion and mine, Evan Gattis. Fangraphs showed some extremely unfair predicitions for El Oso Blanco that they obtained from Depth Charts and Steamer, two such statistics sites that seem to treat players too much like numbers and not like human beings.

So, as per usual, I decided to take it upon myself to make some of my own predictions, based off of last season numbers and trends for the 12 position players expected to be on the 25 man roster on opening day. Hinch will make the final say in what happens with the team, of course. Plus, there are some factors that will, obviously, change what I have here. Those factors are:

1. Assuming all players are healthy year round.
2. Nothing cataclysmic in the way of injuries or trades happen.
3. Pinch hit appearances are not factored in, due to the randomness of such occurrences. 

Anyways, here goes something!: (B) = Projected Bench

As expected, Carlos Beltran will get over 50% of the DH at-bats. I gave him around 53% of those, and the stressing that he will not play that position exclusively. Both Beltran and Hinch have mentioned him being in the outfield. I not only support that mindset, but believe it to come true in 2017. Beltran will remain in the 5 hole when he plays to supplement Correa at cleanup.

The other 47 % of DH  will be split up between Gattis and McCann, who will both platoon at catcher at around a 56/44 clip. McCann will get the majority of the starts behind the dish, with the Big White Bear at the ready in case BMac needs more rest. Both of these gents will see time in the 6 hole.

The top half of the lineup, 1-4, will remain consistent throughout the season with Springer, Bregman, Altuve and Correa in those spots. 5-9 will change the most often. Aoki, Reddick, and Beltran will see a good share of the outfield with Springer. Marisnick figures to be the defensive specialist out in both center and left field. Marwin Gonzalez remains the utility infielder, and will really only see left field in the event of an injury. Yuli will be exclusively first baseman.

Now I know many of you fans will disagree with what I have here, and certainly many different circumstances will change things. You may even wonder why I have Evan Gattis coming off the bench in my projections. Well, that's actually the part I hope I am wrong about. But the sad truth is, we may be seeing yet another season of El Oso Blanco not playing opening day. Again, I REALLY hope I'm wrong on that.

But whether or not he makes opening day, I still see the Big White Bear having a serious impact on this roster in 2017. A lot more so than these other stat sites want to give him credit for, or predict themselves. My projection may have him playing slightly fewer games, but how he can still manage to have even a few more at-bats than he did in 2016. Depending on a lot of different factors, of course.

Not only will he have some of the numbers I placed in my chart above, but I full predict Evan Gattis having a higher walk and lower strikeout rate all together. Let's say, 9% and 18% respectively. He'll have 9 points higher in average and 10 points higher in OPS. Gattis will also continue to have more pitches per plate appearance, or P/PA at around 4.00 or so. Along with that, El Oso Blanco will have 10 more RBI and around the same number, or slightly fewer long balls. However, he will still make the 30 HR threshold for a second season, and continue leading the club in this category.

Bold claims? Perhaps, but something well capable of a player who has become far less of a free swinger and more of a contact hitter to go with the elite power he already possesses in this league today. His 14 at-bats per home run was among the top 5 across both leagues for 2016. Even slightly better than Edwin Encarancion, which some fans out there are going to have to dream on about him, because he'll likely sign with the Cleveland Indians by the time Spring Training starts.

To summarize, those that believe Carlos Beltran will be the full time DH would be wrong. Those that believe Evan Gattis will only be backup catcher, or heaven forbid traded, would also be wrong. Beltran has publicly spoken out against being a full time DH, and Gattis, with his 3.0 WAR (wins above replacement) will not be confined to the bench. At the very least, not nearly as much as people seem to want him there for whatever reasons I will never understand.

And yes, saber snobs, I just used an advanced metric, despite my general opposition to them on principle of the human element of baseball. But it just goes to show, if you want to use such numbers to discredit a player, you also have to be willing to accept them when they actually give more credit to those said players when they surprise everyone. Yes, my predictions are bold, but are still incredibly likely.

Straight from this screen to God's eyes, right fans? Until the season starts, we continue to play the waiting game. And in the mean time, folks need to start embracing El Oso Blanco as a big part of this Astros ball club, and of H-Town as a city!

Despite what some may think, THESE home run celebrations are going to happen a lot more often in 2017!!!!